


Your person

by claro



Series: What we could have been [16]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: trigger warnings for child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 17:12:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18370469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claro/pseuds/claro





	Your person

It happened. Bill delivered upwards of fifteen hundred babies a year. That meant, given the length of his career, that there were half a million people he had guided into the world, his own six children and his nieces and nephew among them.

It happened.

After all, he had been with Mycroft and Greg when Laurence was born, and he’d been with them when he died, long before he’d met Sherlock. He’d been with many parents at the worst moment in their lives. When he was training he’d watched senior midwives break the worst news and he learned, learned that how the news was delivered was important. He learned to tell when parents needed him and when they wanted to be alone. 

Over the years he built a strong team. Old hands, capable and knowledgeable, and bright young things, newly qualified and enthusiastic. And still, on days like this, he made sure it was him who delivered the news.

No ‘sorry’ was going to make it better so he didn’t insult anyone by uttering it. The words felt like ash in his mouth. Internal haemorrhage, heart failure….starved of oxygen, abruption…

Bill closed his eyes, one hand resting against the door frame, trying to clear his mind. They had let him go home early. He was supposed to be on until seven am, but it was barely gone three.

He hadn’t just left though. Hospital protocol was to inform and then give contact details of counselling and offer the services of the hospital Chaplin. Bill did not do that. Bill had sat with the bereaved father, husband, as he stroked his dead wife’s hair and as he delicately cradled the baby who hadn’t even had a chance to take a breath. He’d only moved from that room to call the man’s sister, getting her number from the phone he pilfered, silently thanking Sherlock’s pickpocketing skills for that one.

These things shouldn’t happen in this place.

So many new lives, every day. This was supposed to be a place of happiness and joy, but sometimes it became something else. And those were the days that made Bill wonder how long he could keep doing his job. Sometimes, on those darkest days, it would flash across his mind ‘what if you had to say this to Sherlock?’ - and those were the days he had to lock himself in the bathroom to recompose.

But now he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, bracing himself to climb the seventeen steps, wanting nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep. It took all of his energy to get there, and when he did he moved to the bedroom silently. There was a human shaped mound in the bed and he smiled as, in the light from the streetlamp outside, he saw Sherlock, flat on his back, mouth open. 

Bill pulled off his shirt, stripping down to his boxers, and then he slid into bed. Automatically Sherlock, sensing the heat from Bill’s body, turned towards him, crowding close to him, his head on Bill’s chest. In the darkness Bill pressed a kiss into the riot of black curls, his arms wrapping around his husband.

‘I love you,’ he whispered, letting his eyes close.

#

Bill woke late in the morning, the sounds of a Radio 2 serial in the kitchen and the air heavy with the scent of coffee. Beside him, where Sherlock had been last night, Ptolemy was spread eagled, wide awake and chatting to himself. When he noticed Bill’s eyes were open he grinned at his father and planted a wet kiss on his cheek before leaping from the bed and racing to the kitchen.

Smiling Bill rolled over and found a cup of coffee and a plate of left over pizza on the cabinet beside him. The coffee was now luke warm, and the pizza had obviously come from Bea, no one else would ever order kale and double olives. He pulled on a t shirt and scooped up a slice before wandering out into the flat, just in time to see Ptolemy dart out the open front door, his little feet echoing on the stairs as he raced down to C. 

From his seat at the table Sherlock looked up, and studied Bill’s face.

‘Do you need a… hug?’ he asked.

‘Isn’t that what people do?’

Bill would have laughed if he didn’t feel so wretched, ‘You’re not people,’ he said fondly, briefly touching Sherlock’s hair as he walked past him, carrying his now empty cup to the sink. He had just turned on the tap to rinse it when arms circled his waist and the detectives cheek pressed against Bill’s back.

‘I’m your person,’ Sherlock said, and he continued to hold Bill as the midwife sobbed.


End file.
